Singapore companies need to catch up with the ‘new way of work’

Only two in 10 local respondents from the new VMware survey say their companies have formal BYOD policies.

Eighty-eight percent of 200 Singapore employees surveyed by VMware bring their personal devices to work and more than 50 percent use the devices for work-related purposes.

However, despite the prevalence of the BYOD (bring your own device) movement among Singapore’s workforce, companies are still not ready to support the access and applications required, pointed out Matthew Hardman, VMware’s senior product manager for ASEAN and India. He was presenting the Singapore findings of VMware’s ‘New Way of Work’ study to the local media yesterday (3 April) at the Suntec Convention Centre.

Ninety-four percent of the local respondents said their companies are aware of staff using personal devices and applications for work, but more than three quarters said their companies do not have formal BYOD policies in place, Hardman said.

In fact, according to Hardman, of the 10 countries surveyed, Singapore ranks second in IT policy restrictions.

Matthew Hardman, Senior Product Manager, VMware ASEAN & India

Inevitable changeThe workplace is changing from a desktop and document centric to a highly mobilised environment, said Hardman. “Employees are not just relying on corporate devices but are making their own acquisitions of devices and using them for work purposes,” he added.

The survey revealed that 43 percent of the local respondents said they would use their choice of device and applications despite the lack of support or consent from their IT department.

“The onus is on the companies to support the devices,” Hardman highlighted. Millions of dollars worth of data could be jeopardised if an employee simply loses a device, he explained.

Companies need to relook IT policies and examine BYOD possibilities, concluded Hardman in his presentation. “There are risks in embracing end-user freedom. However, companies can adopt technologies to ensure the security of data,” he said in a brief interview after. For instance, VMware’s desktop virtualisation product called View essentially enables end-users to access their desktops from their mobile devices thus allowing them to obtain critical information without having to store it on their devices, he explained.